The present invention relates to a method of and a system for online interactive service using a high-speed communication network such as a B-ISDN or a bi-directional CATV network, for example, to a method and a system in which, like in such a highly value-added service necessitating secret data of a service receiver (client) as a virtual try-on function of apparel goods in CATV shopping or in a pre-designing function of financial service items such as an education loan, the service can be received without presenting the secret data to the service providing (server) side.
Conventionally, as a typical example of an online interactive service system via a high-speed communication network, there has been a home-shopping (CATV shopping) system using bi-directionality of a CATV as described in page 200 of "Well Understandable Guide to Distribution Industry" edited by Fuji Financial Data Laboratory and published in 1992 from Nippon Jitsugyo Shuppan.
In the CATV shopping system, a consumer selectively calls a desired goods guide program and transmits order information (including a program number and an item number) of a favorite item of goods via a CATV line to a retailer, thereby making a sales contract.
Moreover, according to description in pages 43 to 49 of "TV Shopping Age" written by Kensuke Kojima and published in 1994 from Chuoh Keizai Sha, almost all kinds of goods are available in recent CATV shopping systems and the share of sales of apparel goods is remarkably increased in a reliable fashion and hence the apparel goods are expected as main goods for sales.
Many apparel goods are relatively expensive and the sale thereof depends highly on preference of consumers. Consequently, most consumers consider to first actually put a desired item on to confirm "appearance" and "comfortness" thereof (through the try-on) before deciding the purchasing of the item. Conventionally, a considerable number of commodities purchased in CATV shopping systems have been returned. This situation also occurs because of unavailability of the try-on service. Naturally, due to a characteristic of CATV shopping, it is in principle impossible that the consumer actually (physically) conducts the try-on of an article of apparel goods. However, using "virtual try-on function" to confirm appearance and comfortness in the information processing world, the try-on can be accomplished by the conventional technology. That is, when the function is provided as a highly value-added service in the CATV shopping, the ratio of articles returned primarily because of difference in image and/or size can be decreased. Furthermore, it is possible to enhance utilization of users of TV shopping who have avoided the TV shopping because of unavailability of the try-on.
However, the virtual try-on function is achieved on assumption of utilization of data indicating physical characteristics related to privacy of the consumer. When such data having high secrecy is passed to the server to request the overall process, the service receiver has psychological hesitation due to possibility of ill-intended use thereof and hence it is afraid that this may limit utilization of the CATV shopping system. The present invention has been made in consideration of the problem above.